TOUR: Foodtown - Hazleton, PA

Thomas' Foodtown

Owner: Tom Baseski

Opened: 2006-2020

Previous Tenants: ACME Markets (ca. 1960-1995) > Insalaco's (1995-1998) > Thomas' Family Markets (1998-2006)

Later Tenants: Key Food Supermarkets (2020- )

Cooperative: Allegiance Retail Services

Location: 1061 N Church St, Hazleton, PA

Photographed: November 19, 2019

We're here in the far northern part of Hazleton to tour the Foodtown of Hazleton! The roughly 22,000 square foot store was built as part of a combination indoor mall/strip mall just outside the city by ACME Markets in the 1960s before closing in 1995 and being sold to Insalaco's. Insalaco's closed in 1998, when Thomas' Family Markets moved in. In 2006, the store became a Foodtown, although ownership didn't change. Foodtown then closed in 2020, with Key Food moving in subsequently. Key Food now also has a second location in Hazleton, a Food Universe Marketplace in a former Save-A-Lot. That store was also built as an ACME. I'm not sure whether that Food Universe and this Key Food are owned by the same person or group.

We're going to tour the Foodtown before it closed, although from what I understand Key Food changed very little when they moved in.

This Foodtown has roughly the same decor package as the one in East Stroudsburg (the only remaining Foodtown in Pennsylvania) with a few differences, although as far as I can tell the stores never shared an owner.

The grand aisle is on the left side of the store, with produce in the first aisle, deli/bakery at the back, and meat on the back wall. Dairy/frozen are on the right side.

As we can see, the store was pretty deserted when I visited. That probably should have been a tipoff that the store's closure was coming.

I don't believe they had an in-store bakery here, but they had a baked goods section next to the deli.

Opposite the deli on the back wall is the meat department. This flooring (as Albertsons Florida Blog pointed out) is likely original to Insalaco's, but I assume Thomas's installed the wood-texture flooring in the produce department.

Grocery aisles are not too exciting, with a very mainstream selection. It's possible this shelving was also installed by Insalaco's.

Were these aisle markers installed by Thomas's or Insalaco's? I have no idea what the inside of an Insalaco's would've looked like, but it's certainly possible they date back to the late 90s when Insalaco's was here.

Aisle 7 has some frozen foods, and it's possible these cases were actually installed by ACME...

I'm assuming this decor was installed by Thomas's, but is it possible the decor after the grand aisle was actually done by Insalaco's? For one, the blue here kind of matches the blue on the floor, and for another, it's obvious the store was reset at some point. Of course, it's possible it had been reset between the time Thomas's installed the signage and my visit, but these are most certainly not Breads & Rolls.

Dairy and frozen in the last aisle. Here we can see what I mentioned about the blue flooring and blue wall color. It's possible, but I still think the decor was installed by Thomas's.

A closer look at dairy.

...and a look across the back wall back towards the meat department. The refrigerator to the left in the below picture certainly looks like it could be ACME-era, but Thomas's or Insalaco's could have also brought it in elsewhere secondhand.

And a look at the front-end looking back over towards produce.

I might get back to the Key Food sometime in the future, but in the meantime just picture this store with some Key Food logos around it since I think that's pretty much what it looks like these days.

That's all for Hazleton, and tomorrow, we're heading out to the eastern part of the Coal Region for a look at a store about 12 miles east of here on The Independent Edition!